I just received my weekly e-mail from our church band director, and on Christmas Eve she wants a lot of dobro, which of course is music to my ears-but what may not be music to the congregation's ears is my fumbling around on songs in the key of F. I don't have the option like Jerry Douglas to have one guitar tuned to F-as I believe he does when AKUS plays "Man of Constant Sorrow," and I don't want the pressure of attempting re-tuning from G to F with a short time span between songs. I remember from Ivan Rosenberg's workshop last year that he mentioned that F is his least favorite key to play in.

Also bear in mind that I spend almost no time practicing F scales-which I should be doing, and will review this afternoon-but no miracles are likely to occur between now and the Thursday evening rehearsal.If all else fails I can hang around the 10th fret, but I'd rather not limit it to that.

Does anyone have any hints how to get around in F given our G tuning? Is there any cheating I can do with a capo (I'm music theory challenged, especially on the more obscure stuff).

I'm playing on several of the songs, and the two in F are "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" and "O Come All Ye Faithful." She decided that those songs in G would be too high for many to sing and that F would be better.

Dobro player's dilemma!

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 19 December 2005 at 11:48 AM.]

What I've done on all our Dobro songs with the Peach Pickers, is write just a bar of the Dobro Start Notes in tab right at the top of the page, therefore, I see the fret numbers if I get in a panic of losing it. I know I should be using the 10th fret base for F. That's helped me quite a few times.

The other problem you mentioned is Christmas music, well it's a problem for me. I just played Dobro with some folks who do gospel stuff (not the Peach Pickers)at a few old folks homes Christmas show, and they use a piano also. I found this almost impossible to play Christmas music with, because the pianist (being a good player) seemed to play every note as a chord!!!! Let me tell you, I wasn't in there much on some of the Christmas songs. But, they let me do a Dobro solo (with their back up) on Silent Night, and combined with finger chimes (in G), I alsmost got a standing ovulation from the old people.

We only get to play the Christmas music the few times each year, and I could never take the time to really learn it in any key, except for three or four of the uncomplicated tunes. Let us know how ya make out!!!

Your I chord is on the 10th fret, your IV chord is on the 3rd, and your V is on the 5th fret. It's no different than playing in E with no capo (frets 9, 2, and 4).

At our church I finally got our music director to stop bringing in songs in the key of Eb. It was driving us acoustic guitarists crazy. I hate having to remember to put on and take off a capo, especially when there isn't much time between songs.

Of course I also knew that I would be opening up a can of worms, and would get diverse answers. Truly the expression "there's more than one way to skin a cat" comes into play here. Howard: sounds like a Franklin PedaBro would be the REAL solution! Lee: I'm always begging the music director for songs in G-I think I need to get out of my comfort zone and live dangerously! She was being nice last Saturday when we were caroling in front of our church office, which is located in a shopping center, and handing out cookies and fudge. It was rainy and pretty darn cold here in Northern California, and my fingers weren't working very well on the dobro-so the music director transposed (playing the keyboard) a lot of the songs to G to help me out.

I guess if you're not a "capo-ey" kind of guy then you overlook the obvious.

My first inclination would be to play mostly closed postion stuff, no capo, and have it revolve around the 3rd, 8th, and 10th frets-since I'm not well versed in F scales up and down the neck. But we are doing "Joy To The World," a Mariah Carey uptempo version, and I don't know how well I will be able to keep up jumping around on those frets-if I can throw in some open stuff with the guitar capo'd I may have a better shot at keeping up.

As I wrote on Jerry's board, this is turning into a great dobro lesson without having a teacher present. How to approach a song that is a bit awkward for the typical G tuned dobro because it is in a key that an amateur player isn't very comfortable with. I'm trying all the ideas, including re-tuning to F and capoing for other songs.

Any other ideas-keep 'em coming, I'll let you know how it turns out after the service!

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 20 December 2005 at 10:21 AM.]

Steinar

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www.gregertsen.com

There's nothing like an upcoming gig to get you to knuckle down and learn. Here's an excellent opportunity to learn how to get around in F. I can't see tuning down and using a capo. It's not like you need to throw in a lot of hot bluegrass rolls, hammer-ons and pull-offs for these two numbers.

Steinar

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www.gregertsen.com

ie: Playing in Eb capoed at fret 1. One of my duo partners tunes down a half step and this is a favored position for his "key of E" tunes.

I still would usually play in F without a capo, using F scale notes, and the C major scale, and honing in on the Roots on the third fret D string, and the thirds on the various A notes.

It went reasonably well during the Christmas Eve service.

My friend Badger read of my plight-he lives about 20 minutes from me and owns 2 nice resos. So I was able to borrow his black Beard Mike Auldridge model as a second guitar. It was looking vaguely Jerry Douglas-like with two sharp looking dobros on guitar stands (my maple Clinesmith also) before the service started. It was the closest I'll ever come to my fantasy of playing with Alison Krauss & Union Station!

By having a second guitar available, I tuned the Beard down to F. The Beard MA has a more resonant bass quality than the Clinesmith. I largely avoided strings one and 2 on those two F songs, concentrating on strings 3 through 6, and I think it sounded pretty good.

Pro musicians here, Mark Van Allen included, have suggested that we should have a better handle on being able to play out of all keys-and every time I go to another workshop that is impressed upon me by the teacher, and about 3 weeks ago was no exception. Rob Ickes was visiting his family (he's originally from Millbrae, just south of S.F., before moving to Nashville in about '92) and he put on a workshop in Burlingame (our own Brad Bechtel was in attendance-hi Brad!). Along with many great tips, Rob really emphasized learning your scales. In spite of how different methods have evolved over decades in learning how to play an instrument-it still comes down to being able to play those scales backward and forward! But, as I mentioned in the original post-I don't know my F scales very well-and wasn't going to become very competent on them with about 4 days notice, so I needed another approach. If it weren't for the availablity of the second dobro-I would have capo'd at 3. But tuning down to F allowed me to use a lot of the moves that I am comfortable with in open G. The strings felt slightly flabby-but not nearly noticeable enough to put on different gauges-especially for two three minute songs! All that said, Jerry Douglas posted on his bulletin board that he likes playing out of G in the key of F-he likes the tone of the guitar up around the 10th fret, before you get out over the body of the guitar, as he put it. But he didn't bother to explain why he plays "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow" with a guitar tuned to F with AKUS-but I think because it is a rousing bluegrasser he likes to have all the hammer ons and pull offs available.

There was a brief horror story on Saturday evening though. I was to play through "Silent Night" one time before the singing started as the final song. Like many churches on Christmas
Eve, all in attendance were given a candle to light during this segment. What no one bothered to warn me about was that as the song started, all the lights were to be switched off. I started into "Silent" (key of A, okay-I capoed the Clinesmith at 2-I've played the song without capo plenty of times, but I thought it would be cool to have the hammer-ons and pull offs). The keyboard player was backing me. Imagine my surprise, on my non-fretted instrument when it went pitch black! I got through the earlier part of the song fine, I think the intonation was accurate-but during the "sleep in Heavenly peace" part when I had to go up to the 12th, then 11th frets-I started to crash and burn and felt myself break out into an instant sweat. Fortunately our keyboardist didn't miss a beat so I think the damage was fairly minimal when I made my recovery.

Naturally I nailed the thing prior to the service during the sound check-but hey, whether you are an amateur playing at church, a weekend warrior at a club gig, or a pro at Carnegie Hall-you gotta be ready for anything!

This coming Sunday I am the music leader, so I will make sure to choose some songs for dobro that I have played a bunch of times-these once a year Christmas gigs can be stressful!

I'm thinking of doing the AKUS song by Ron Block, "A Living Prayer" that Alison Krauss sings so beautifully. On their last album, Jerry Douglas does not play dobro on it-it's the only one on the cd that he doesn't play on, but we have done it one time only at our church, and I did play on it. If you keep your playing subtle and don't get in the singer's way it can be good one for the dobro, along with just a six-string acoustic and maybe bass.

Once again guys, thanks for all the tips and suggestions for playing in F-fun reading and very educational!

quote:

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since you guys are all waiting with baited breath...

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I've been to many steel shows....and let me tell you,....there's a lot of guys whose breath smells like bait!

Thanks for the conclusion Mark. It's a good read and always an education.

[This message was edited by HowardR on 26 December 2005 at 12:38 PM.]